East of the Sun Derailed by distractions.

This post is for the IWSG first Wednesday, May 1st, 2024. Thanks to our wonderful hosts and I hope that Victoria Marie Lees, Kim Lajevardi, Nancy Gideon and Cathrina Constantine are less easily distracted and chronically fidgety than me.

Distractions ? Constant, even just the F 35s thundering across the sky, not today because it’s raining at last, just when we were all sick of bright cold days in April. How easily distracted ? Let’s start with spiders. Trained by my gran to respect and admire all spiders, even, and ahead of formal science on this one, using a fresh cobweb on grazes, I have a serious spider problem. I hate knocking down their webs. Could I achieve anything so intricate, so meticulous ? If you wish to live and thrive, let the spider run alive, but not in Australia, where the aunt who moved there almost died, twice. Even in our own back yard, a bite from a false widow spider caused trouble. False, only a Steatoda bipunctata, but even so, the bite turned my right thumb and wrist black and numb for days.

Next ? Easily distracted, is it really my fault ? This is what I’m up against. Not an excuse, a reason, including a well documented and beautifully illustrated case of distraction , which is all around : ‘It was an old, old house, full of cupboards and passages. ( tick) Some of the walls were four feet thick (Tick, but make that just 3ft . Giving a metric equivalent for a Charles I or II house would be anachronistic, but not by much. Perhaps being forced to learn the twelve times table encouraged Abbot Gabriel Mouton to write Observationes diametrorum solis et lunae apparentium in 1670 – basically, the metric system. ) 1

Back to that old, old house. and its 4ft walls…. ‘ There used to be queer noises inside them, as if there might be a little secret staircase. Certainly there were odd little jagged doorways in the wainscot, and things disappeared at night—especially cheese and bacon. ( Jagged doorways ? Are we allowed to repair mouseholes in the panelling of a Listed Building, or must we request Listed Building Consent ) Food no longer disappears, even cheese and bacon, but in the nightmare that was Lockdown 3, even soap and a garden kneeling pad were eaten and we were catching up to 25 long-tailed fieldmice and voles a day. I blame catch and release, but could I poison ? Never. Hideous traps, pinning them down till they die in agony ? Apply Jeremy Bentham’s can they feel test. Of course they can. Far better, the tried and tested solution that’s worked for at least 12,000 years. 2 Previous cat died August 10th, 2020. Key public buildings have official mousers for a reason, and mouse can be a euphemism. Not keen on rats ? Avoid anywhere rural or inhabited by humans, especially places like Bowness on Windermere.

Looking for her lost and delinquent kitten, Tom, Mrs. Tabitha became more and more distracted, and mewed dreadfully . Was Tom dead ? Was he a prisoner ? Might be eaten by rats, can he be found in time ? Check the Tale of Samuel Whiskers and find out. Luckily, on March 14th 2021, we were offered two kittens. Problem solved, though I suspect that like Tom Kitten,they daren’t face anything bigger than A Mouse.

Old, old house ? Distracting, even just glancing round the room, seeing the joints and peg holes in repurposed timbers from the original house, spotting, when the light catches them, names incised on window panes, with a diamond stylus, nearly two hundred years ago. No diamonds here. Like my alter ego/kindred spirit Anne Shirley, much prefer amethysts and better still, my right hand twin smoky quartz crystal, instead of a ring. Add all the ethical issues, diamonds have far more important uses, starting with cancer treatments. Plus, we’re not allowed to write on the listed windows. 3  See what I mean about distractions ? No tweeting/xing, still no signal. Cats arrange their own walks, and after last night’s deluge, no need to water the garden. .

Distraction, distracted ? Don’t trivialise. This isn’t just day-dreaming in class, because the lesson’s boring, or surfing around online. Distraction can destroy your mind. Seriously… Most, and surely I mean all writers know the terrifying places your own mind can create, not just at 4 a.m, but round the clock. Distraction doesn’t simply erode your time. It can be lethal. How to think, feel, act, if your mind’s dragged in different directions , usually by the bad behaviour of others.

She speaks much of her father ; says she hears
There’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart,
Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense

Ophelia’s distract, out of her mind with grief, used and abused by Hamlet, and almost the entire cast, apart from Gertrude. Fifteen, sixteen, no getting away from Hamlet, our set play, but sweet prince ? Unanimous, in our class, Hamlet’s a (supply preferred epithet) What about Malvolio ? ’ They say, poor gentlemen, he is distract.‘ Delivered by Feste, Malvolio’s letter to Olivia proves he isn’t.  Puritanical killjoy, distanced from the other servants, gullible too, but not mad, just notoriously abus’d. The upside of distraction ? Unexpected events can be brilliant. ‘Three daughters married ! Ten thousand a year! Oh, Lord! What will become of me. I shall go distracted.”

 Derailed by distractions ? Often. For me, the best solution seems to be manual work, must be monotonous and well away from any screen or headphones. Not having a signal helps, instead, think. Yesterday, mentally drafting this answer, I sawed, chopped and stacked a huge pile of wood until desperate to sit at this desk and bash it out. And thank my old school, for enforced rote learning of Shakespeare ?

1 https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk › Biographies › Mouton

2 https://www.thoughtco.com › cat-history-and-domestication-170651  

3 https://www.diamondrocks.co.uk › magazine › besides-jewellery-else-diamonds-used

This is the first Wednesday of the month post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. Founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh, this group offers a safe space where writers can share their fears and insecurities without being judged. “We are a home for writers in all stages; from unpublished to bestsellers. Our goal is to offer assistance and guidance. We want to help writers overcome their insecurities, and by offering encouragement, we are creating a community of support.”